The Peloponnesian War, 431 to 404 B.C., was an ancient Greek Ancient Greece is the civilization belonging to the period of Greek history lasting from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to 146 BC and the Roman conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth. At the center of this time period is Classical Greece, which flourished during the 5th to 4th centuries BC, at first under Athenian war, fought by Athens The city of Athens during the classical period of Ancient Greece was a notable polis (city-state) of Attica, Greece, leading the Delian League in the Peloponnesian War against Sparta and the Peloponnesian League. Athenian democracy was established in 508 BC under Cleisthenes following the tyranny of Hippias. This system remained remarkably stable, and its empire The Delian League, founded in 478 BC, was an association of 173 Greek city-states under the leadership of Athens, whose purpose was to continue fighting the Persian Empire after the Greek victory in the Battle of Plataea at the end of the Greco–Persian Wars. The League's modern name derives from its official meeting place, the island of Delos, against the Peloponnesian League The Peloponnesian League was an alliance of states in the Peloponnese in the 6th and 5th centuries BC, led by Sparta Sparta or Lacedaemon, was a prominent city-state in ancient Greece, situated on the banks of the River Eurotas in Laconia, in south-eastern Peloponnese. It emerged as a political entity around the 10th century BC, when the invading Dorians subjugated the local, non-Dorian population. From c. 650 BC it rose to become the dominant military land-. Historians have traditionally divided the war into three phases. In the first phase, the Archidamian War, Sparta launched repeated invasions of Attica Attica is a historical region of Greece, containing Athens, the current capital of Greece. The historical region is centered on the Attic peninsula, which projects into the Aegean Sea. There is a modern periphery (administrative region) of Greece, also named Attica, which is more extensive than the historical region, and includes several islands,, while Athens took advantage of its naval supremacy to raid the coast of the Peloponnese The Peloponnese, Peloponnesos or Peloponnesus is a large peninsula (technically an island since the 1893 construction of the Corinth Canal) and region in southern Greece, forming the part of the country south of the Gulf of Corinth. During the late Middle Ages and the Ottoman era, the peninsula was known as the Morea (Greek: Μωρέας, colloq. attempting to suppress signs of unrest in its empire. This period of the war was concluded in 421 BC, with the signing of the Peace of Nicias. That treaty, however, was soon undermined by renewed fighting in the Peloponnese. In 415 BC, Athens dispatched a massive expeditionary force The Sicilian Expedition was an Athenian expedition to Sicily from 415 BC to 413 BC, during the Peloponnesian War. The expedition was hampered from the outset by uncertainty in its purpose and command structure—political maneuvering in Athens swelled a lightweight force of twenty ships into a massive armada, and the expedition's primary proponent, to attack Syracuse Syracuse (Italian: Siracusa listen pronounced [siraˈku(ː)za], Sicilian: Sarausa, Ancient Greek: Συράκουσαι – transliterated: Syrakousai) is a historic city in southern Italy, the capital of the province of Syracuse. The city is famous for its rich Greek history, culture, amphitheatres, architecture, and as the birthplace of in Sicily Sicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, comprising an autonomous region of Italy. Minor islands around it, such as the Aeolian Islands, are part of Sicily. Its official name is Regione Autonoma Siciliana (English:Sicilian Autonomous Region); the attack failed disastrously, with the destruction of the entire force, in 413 BC. This ushered in the final phase of the war, generally referred to either as the Decelean War, or the Ionian War. In this phase, Sparta, now receiving support from Persia The Achaemenid Empire or Persian Empire was the successor state of the Median Empire, ruling over significant portions of what would become Greater Iran. The Persian and the Median Empire taken together are also known as the Medo-Persian Empire, succeeding the Neo-Assyrian Empire. It was succeeded in turn by the Seleucid Empire, supported rebellions in Athens' subject states in the Aegean Sea The Aegean Sea (Greek: Αιγαίο Πέλαγος, Egeo Pelagos /eˈʝeo ˈpelaɣos/ ; Turkish: Ege Denizi) is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea located between the southern Balkan and Anatolian peninsulas, i.e., between the mainlands of Greece and Turkey respectively. In the north, it is connected to the Marmara Sea and Black Sea and Ionia Ionia is an ancient region of central coastal Anatolia in present-day Turkey, the region nearest İzmir, which was historically Smyrna. It consisted of the northernmost territories of the Ionian League of Greek settlements. Never a unified state, it was eponymously named after the Ionian tribe who in the Archaic Period occupied mainly the shores, undermining Athens' empire, and, eventually, depriving the city of naval supremacy. The destruction of Athens' fleet at Aegospotami The naval Battle of Aegospotami took place in 405 BC and was the last major battle of the Peloponnesian War. In the battle, a Spartan fleet under Lysander completely destroyed the Athenian navy. This effectively ended the war, since Athens could not import grain or communicate with its empire without control of the sea effectively ended the war, and Athens surrendered in the following year.
The Peloponnesian War reshaped the Ancient Greek world. On the level of international relations, Athens, the strongest city-state in Greece prior to the war's beginning, was reduced to a state of near-complete subjection, while Sparta became established as the leading power of Greece. The economic costs of the war were felt all across Greece; poverty became widespread in the Peloponnese, while Athens found itself completely devastated, and never regained its pre-war prosperity.[1][2] The war also wrought subtler changes to Greek society; the conflict between democratic Democracy is a political form of government where governing power is derived from the people, either by direct referendum or by means of elected representatives of the people (representative democracy). The term comes from the Greek: δημοκρατία – (dēmokratía) "rule of the people", which was coined from δῆμος (dêmos) & Athens and oligarchic An oligarchy is a form of power structure in which power effectively rests with a small segment of society distinguished by royalty, wealth, family ties, or military control. The word oligarchy is from the Greek words "ὀλίγος" (olígos), "a few" and the verb "ἄρχω" (archo), "to rule, to govern, to Sparta, each of which supported friendly political factions within other states, made civil war a common occurrence in the Greek world.
Greek warfare, meanwhile, originally a limited and formalized form of conflict, was transformed into an all-out struggle between city-states Whereas nation-states rely on a common heritage, be it linguistic, historical, economic, etc., the city-state relies on the common interest in the function of the urban center. The urban center and its activity supplies the livelihoods of all urbanites inhabiting the city-state, complete with atrocities on a large scale. Shattering religious and cultural taboos, devastating vast swathes of countryside, and destroying whole cities, the Peloponnesian War marked the dramatic end to the fifth-century-B.C. golden age of Greece.[3]
Contents |
Prelude
Casus Belli
As the preeminent Athenian historian, Thucydides Thucydides (Greek Θουκυδίδης, Thoukydídēs) was a Greek historian and author of the History of the Peloponnesian War, which recounts the 5th century BC war between Sparta and Athens to the year 411 BC. Thucydides has been dubbed the father of "scientific history" because of his strict standards of evidence-gathering and, wrote in his influential History of the Peloponnesian War, "The growth of the power of Athens, and the alarm which this inspired in Lacedaemon Sparta or Lacedaemon, was a prominent city-state in ancient Greece, situated on the banks of the River Eurotas in Laconia, in south-eastern Peloponnese. It emerged as a political entity around the 10th century BC, when the invading Dorians subjugated the local, non-Dorian population. From c. 650 BC it rose to become the dominant military land-, made war inevitable."[4] Indeed, the nearly fifty years of Greek history that preceded the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War had been marked by the development of Athens as a major power in the Mediterranean world. Its empire began as a small group of city-states, called the Delian League The so-called Delian League was an association of 173 5th-century BC Greek city-states under the leadership of Athens, whose purpose was to continue fighting the Persian Empire after the Greek victory in the Battle of Plataea at the end of the Greco–Persian Wars. Founded in 478 BC, the League's modern name derives from its official meeting place, — from the island of Delos The island of Delos , isolated in the centre of the roughly circular ring of islands called the Cyclades, near Mykonos, is one of the most important mythological, historical and archaeological sites in Greece. The excavations in the island are among the most extensive in the Mediterranean; ongoing work takes place under the direction of the French, on which they kept their treasury — that came together to ensure that the Greco-Persian Wars The Greco-Persian Wars were a series of conflicts between the Achaemenid Empire of Persia and city-states of the Hellenic world that started in 499 BC and lasted until 449 BC. The collision between the fractious political world of the Greeks and the enormous empire of the Persians began when Cyrus the Great conquered Ionia in 547 BC. Struggling to were truly over. After a time, though, Athens' influence began to dominate the other city-states. The city proceeded to conquer all of Greece save for Sparta and its allies, and became known as the Athenian Empire. After defeating the Persian invasion of Greece in the year 480 BC, Athens led the coalition of Greek city-states that continued the Greco-Persian Wars with attacks on Persian territories in the Aegean and Ionia. What then ensued was a period, referred to as the Pentecontaetia Pentecontaetia is the term used to refer to the period in Ancient Greek history between the defeat of the second Persian invasion of Greece at Plataea in 480 BC and the beginning of the Peloponnesian War in 433 BC. The term originates from Thucydides, who uses it in his description of the period. The Pentecontaetia was marked by the rise of Athens (the name given by Thucydides), in which Athens increasingly came to be recognized as an Athenian Empire The Delian League, founded in 478 BC, was an association of 173 Greek city-states under the leadership of Athens, whose purpose was to continue fighting the Persian Empire after the Greek victory in the Battle of Plataea at the end of the Greco–Persian Wars. The League's modern name derives from its official meeting place, the island of Delos,,[5] carrying out an aggressive war against Persia. By the middle of the century, the Persians had been driven from the Aegean and forced to cede control of a vast range of territories to Athens. At the same time, Athens greatly increased its own power; a number of its formerly independent allies were reduced, over the course of the century, to the status of tribute-paying subject states of the Delian League. This tribute was used to support a powerful fleet and, after the middle of the century, to fund massive public works programs in Athens, ensuring resentment.[6]
Friction between Athens and Peloponnesian states, including Sparta, began early in the Pentecontaetia; in the wake of the departure of the Persians from Greece, Sparta attempted to prevent the reconstruction of the walls of Athens (without the walls, Athens would have been defenseless against a land attack and subject to Spartan control), but was rebuffed.[7] According to Thucydides, although the Spartans took no action at this time, they "secretly felt aggrieved."[8] Conflict between the states flared up again in 465 BC, when a helot The helots were an unfree population group that formed the main population of Laconia and the whole of Messenia (areas of Sparta). Their exact status was already disputed in antiquity: according to Critias, they were "especially slaves" whereas to Pollux, they occupied a status "between free men and slaves". Tied to the land, revolt broke out in Sparta. The Spartans summoned forces from all of their allies, including Athens, to help them suppress the revolt. Athens sent out a sizable contingent (4,000 Hoplites), but upon its arrival, this force was dismissed by the Spartans, while those of all the other allies were permitted to remain. According to Thucydides, the Spartans acted in this way out of fear that the Athenians would switch sides and support the helots; the offended Athenians repudiated their alliance with Sparta.[9] When the rebellious helots were finally forced to surrender and permitted to evacuate the country, the Athenians settled them at the strategic city of Naupactus on the Corinthian Gulf.[10]
In 459 BC, Athens took advantage of a war between its neighbor Megara Megara is an ancient city (pop. 23,032 in 2001) in Attica, Greece. It lies in the northern section of the Isthmus of Corinth opposite the island of Salamis, which belonged to Megara in archaic times, before being taken by Athens. Megara was one of the four districts of Attica, embodied in the four mythic sons of King Pandion II, of whom Nisos was and Corinth Corinth, or Korinth (Greek Κόρινθος, Kórinthos ( [ˈkorinθos] ) is a city in Greece. In antiquity it was a city-state, on the Isthmus of Corinth, the narrow stretch of land that joins the Peloponnesus to the mainland of Greece. To the west of the isthmus lies the Gulf of Corinth, to the east lies the Saronic Gulf. Corinth is about 78, both Spartan allies, to conclude an alliance with Megara, giving the Athenians a critical foothold on the isthmus of Corinth The Isthmus of Corinth is the narrow land bridge which connects the Peloponnese peninsula with the mainland of Greece, near the city of Corinth. The word "isthmus" comes from the Ancient Greek word for "neck" and refers to the narrowness of the land. To the west of the Isthmus is the Gulf of Corinth, to the east the Saronic. A fifteen year conflict, commonly known as the First Peloponnesian War, ensued, in which Athens fought intermittently against Sparta, Corinth, Aegina Aegina (Greek: Αίγινα ) is one of the Saronic Islands of Greece in the Saronic Gulf, 17 miles (27 km) from Athens. Tradition derives the name from Aegina, the mother of Aeacus, who was born in and ruled the island. During ancient times, Aegina was a rival to Athens, the great sea power of the era, and a number of other states. For a time during this conflict, Athens controlled not only Megara but also Boeotia Boeotia, also spelled Beotia and Bœotia , formerly Cadmeis, was a region of ancient Greece, north of the eastern part of the Gulf of Corinth. It was bounded on the south by Megaris and the Kithairon mountain range that forms a natural barrier with Attica, on the north by Opuntian Locris and the Euripus Strait at the Gulf of Euboea, and on the; at its end, however, in the face of a massive Spartan invasion of Attica, the Athenians ceded the lands they had won on the Greek mainland, and Athens and Sparta recognized each other's right to control their respective alliance systems.[11] The war was officially ended by the Thirty Years' Peace, signed in the winter of 446/5 BC.[12]
Breakdown of the peace
The Thirty Years' Peace was first tested in 440 BC, when Athens' powerful ally Miletus Miletus (Ancient Greek: Μίλητος, literally transliterated Milētos, Latin Miletus) was an ancient city on the western coast of Anatolia (in what is now Aydin Province, Turkey), near the mouth of the Maeander River in ancient Caria. Evidence of first settlement at the site has been made inaccessible by the rise of sea level and deposition of rebelled from its alliance with Athens. The rebels quickly secured the support of a Persian satrap Satrap was the name given to the governors of the provinces of the ancient Median and Achaemenid (Persian) Empires and in several of their successors, such as the Sassanid Empire and the Hellenistic empires, and Athens found itself facing the prospect of revolts throughout the empire. The Spartans, whose intervention would have been the trigger for a massive war to determine the fate of the empire, called a congress of their allies to discuss the possibility of war with Athens. Sparta's powerful ally of Corinth was notably opposed to intervention, and the congress voted against war with Athens. The Athenians crushed the revolt, and peace was maintained.[13]
The more immediate events that led to war involved Athens and Corinth. After suffering a defeat at the hands of their colony of Corcyra Corfu is a Greek island in the Ionian Sea. It is the second largest of the Ionian Islands. Its northern part lies off the coast of Sarandë, Albania, from which it is separated by straits varying in breadth from 3 to 23 km (2 to 15 mi), including one near ancient Butrint, while its southern part lies off the coast of Thesprotia, Greece. The island, a sea power that was not allied to either Sparta or Athens, Corinth began to build an allied naval force. Alarmed, Corcyra sought an alliance with Athens, which after debate and input from both Corcyra and Corinth, decided to swear to a defensive alliance with Corcyra. At the Battle of Sybota, a small contingent of Athenian ships played a critical role in preventing a Corinthian fleet from capturing Corcyra. It is worth noting, however, that the Athenians were instructed not to intervene in the battle unless it was clear that Corinth was going to press onward to invade Corcyra. This was done in order to uphold the Thirty Years' Peace. The presence of Athenian warships A trireme was a type of galley, a Hellenistic-era warship that was used by the ancient maritime civilizations of the Mediterranean, especially the Phoenicians, ancient Greeks and Romans standing off from the engagement was enough to dissuade the Corinthians from exploiting their victory, thus sparing much of the routed Corcyraean fleet.
Following this, Athens instructed Potidaea The Battle of Potidaea was, with the Battle of Sybota, one of the catalysts for the Peloponnesian War. It was fought near Potidaea in 432 BC between Athens and a combined army from Corinth and Potidaea, along with their various allies, a tributary ally of Athens but a colony of Corinth, to tear down its walls, to send hostages to Athens, to dismiss the Corinthian magistrates from office, and to refuse the magistrates that the city would send in the future.[14] The Corinthians, outraged by these actions, encouraged Potidaea to revolt and assured them that they would ally with them should they revolt from Athens. Meanwhile, the Corinthians were unofficially aiding Potidaea by sneaking contingents of men into the besieged city to help defend it. This was a direct violation of the Thirty Years' Peace, which had (among other things) stipulated that the Delian League and the Peloponnesian League would respect each other's autonomy and internal affairs.
A further source of provocation was an Athenian decree, issued in 433/2 BC, imposing stringent trade sanctions on Megarian citizens (once more a Spartan ally after the conclusion of the First Peloponnesian War). These sanctions, known as the Megarian decree, were largely ignored by Thucydides Thucydides (Greek Θουκυδίδης, Thoukydídēs) was a Greek historian and author of the History of the Peloponnesian War, which recounts the 5th century BC war between Sparta and Athens to the year 411 BC. Thucydides has been dubbed the father of "scientific history" because of his strict standards of evidence-gathering and, but some modern economic historians have noted that forbidding Megara to trade with the prosperous Athenian empire would have been disastrous for the Megarans, and have accordingly considered the decree to be a contributing factor in bringing about the war.[15] Historians that attribute responsibility for the war to Athens cite this event as the main cause for blame.[16]
At the request of the Corinthians, the Spartans summoned members of the Peloponnesian League to Sparta in 432 BC, especially those who had grievances with Athens to make their complaints to the Spartan assembly. This debate was attended by members of the league and a delegation from Athens (that was not invited) also asked to speak, and became the scene of a debate between the Athenians and the Corinthians. Thucydides reports that the Corinthians condemned Sparta's inactivity up to that point, warning the Spartans that if they continued to remain passive while the Athenians were energetically active, they would soon find themselves outflanked and without allies.[17] The Athenians, in response, reminded the Spartans of their record of military success and opposition to Persia, and warned them of the dangers of confronting such a powerful state, ultimately encouraging Sparta to seek arbitration as provided by the Thirty Years' Peace.[18] Undeterred, a majority of the Spartan assembly voted to declare that the Athenians had broken the peace, essentially declaring war.[19]
doctor_ray
Wed, 20 Jan 2010 22:25:15 GM
I must admit to falling behind in my book reviewing - I'm working on Donald Kagan's monograph on the . Peloponnesian War. right now, and I haven't even told you about the anthology of Lovecraft-inspired horror that I finished just after ...
